Chretien Pushes Bill To Hinder Secession Effort

December 19, 1999|By JAMES BROOKE The New York Times

MONTREAL — With popular support for Quebec's independence in remission, Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada made a bold gamble with his country's future last week, introducing legislation that lays out Canada's first road map for national division, but one so littered with obstacles that he bets the separatists will never follow it.

The new legislation, which requires a "clear majority" voting on a "clear question" on secession, is the direct outgrowth of what many Canadians now call their nation's "near death experience," the 1995 Quebec referendum that unity forces won by a margin of just 1 percent.

Since that high point for separation, polls in Quebec indicated this fall that support for independence receded to a 10-year low, around 40 percent. At the same time, popular support for the separatists' provincial government, headed by Premier Lucien Bouchard, fell to the lowest point in its five-year history, around 37 percent. In a new poll commissioned by Actualite magazine, 74 percent of Quebec residents interviewed predicted that their province would remain in Canada "forever."

Giving unity a nudge, Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac, leaders of the two foreign countries that the people of Quebec most care about, the United States and France, came to Quebec this fall and pointedly praised Canada's federal system of government.

Public opinion in Quebec is known to be volatile, as allies reminded Chretien when he prepared his "clarity" legislation in recent weeks. The veteran prime minister, who entered politics when John F. Kennedy was in the White House, said he knew best.

"Canada is my business, sir," Chretien, 65, a Quebec native, snapped at a reporter who asked him about stirring up the separatists. "And it is the future of Canada that is at stake."

While the bill introduced by the prime minister might seem innocuous to many Americans, it provoked what one columnist described as "World War II headlines."

The bill, intended to carry out a Supreme Court decision from last year, authorizes the House of Commons in Ottawa to rule on the clarity of any secessionist question adopted by a provincial legislature. It also allows Canada's lower house to decide whether the referendum results constituted a "clear majority."

Such seemingly inoffensive language immediately provoked a string of retorts from Parti Quebecois leaders, including "brutal," "Soviet-style," and an old standby: "straitjacket."

On one level, Quebeckers of many political stripes believe that it is entirely up to their provincial legislature to set the rules for a referendum that would decide the political future of Quebec, Canada's largest province. Across political lines, the people of Quebec are galled by the idea that legislators from as far away as the Yukon would have veto power over the future of Canada's oldest European society.

In a reflection of broad Quebec opposition to "outside interference," criticism has come from the local leader of ChrM-itien's Liberal Party, Jean Charest, a provincial legislator who leads in public opinion polls in the race to become Quebec's next premier. Quebec Liberals and Parti Quebecois legislators may adopt a common front against the bill.

In the two secession referendums, the proposal was deliberately phrased in ambiguous terms. Vague phrases like "sovereignty," "partnership" and "association" were used to draw under one tent people known as "soft secessionists" interested in the kind of autonomy now enjoyed by Scotland and hard-liners who want to create an independent French-speaking republic. In focus groups, support for breaking away from Canada plummeted when questioners used words like "secession" and "independence."

Indeed, polls of Quebeckers who voted yes to "sovereignty" in 1995 indicated that about one-third believed that they would still be able to keep their Canadian passports and to send members of Parliament to Ottawa.

Before a province could say goodbye to Canada, it would have to negotiate with Ottawa and the other nine provinces its share of Canada's $400 billion debt, its borders and its plans to guarantee the rights of Indians and linguistic minorities.